LUCIA

 

“You know I’ve only been here seven days but I’ve woken with the sunrise on every single one,” I said, leaning against the entrance to the bookstore patio.

Cal was stretched out with a book on a large deck chair in front of the fire pit, which he’d lit. For the first time in a while, the sun was out—or, at least not yet. But the storm clouds had been cleared away, leaving a clean blue sky. Through the Redwoods you could just make out sly fingers of sunshine beginning to lift from the horizon.

“Good morning,” Cal said, voice still husky from sleep. He patted the spot next to him and I gladly joined, wrapping a blanket around both of us. A steaming mug of coffee was pressed into my hand—the same Virginia Woolf mug from our first day together. Max slept at our feet. Cal was cute and ruffled in the morning, his thick hair messy and scruff closer to a beard.

“I used to only go to bed at sunrise, if you can believe it,” I said.

“Wild nights in LA?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Wild nights of being a model. An agent is always pushing you to ‘be seen’ at different places, with certain people. Calling the paparazzi and pretending you didn’t know they were going to follow you, looking fabulous in a short, slinky dress that the readers of People Magazine could then vote on.”

Cal’s forehead crinkled. “Vote on what?”

“Who wore it better, of course.” I said, taking a long, grateful sip of hot coffee.

“Let me guess,” Cal said sardonically, “you did.”

“Every damn time,” I replied. “But we’ve only been here seven days and already…” I paused, searching for the right words. “It’s like what I told you the other night. Is it wrong to have this kind of reaction to a place? I haven’t checked my phone, or mindlessly texted friends I no longer like, or counted the number of comments I get on Instagram, or compared myself to some new, younger model, or analyze the way I look in a certain picture.” I stopped. I was babbling.

“Do you miss it though?” Cal asked quietly.

“Yes,” I said, quickly. “I do. It’s been my life since I was fifteen. There’s an adrenaline to fame. It’s different than just sitting here, enjoying the sunrise. Everything is about getting on top, and when you lose your footing, getting back on top. An endless cycle.,” I said.

“But you still feel different? Like you’re changing?”

I turned to look at him, unsure of how to answer. “Do you feel that way? Has Big Sur changed you?”

He sighed, staring out at the forest. I could hear the waves, and something else: the absence of cars. Back here you couldn’t hear the constant drone of engines and exhaust pipes, the lullaby I fell asleep to every night in LA.

“You know, my mom and my uncle hated it here,” he started. “My grandfather and grandmother, well, they were Big Sur. Every single person who lived here attended both of their funerals. They were like…unofficial mayors of this town. And this bookstore meant everything to them. Created entirely in my grandfather’s image, but you know my grandmother did more than people realize. I think there’s this sense that she was always in the background, but she wasn’t. Half the authors who came here were because she’d read them, contacted them, pushed my grandfather to support them. She was a voracious reader. And at night, after my grandfather went to bed, she was the one who’d stay up until dawn, right on this patio, talking with the writers.” He paused. “This was a dream they shared equally.”

“I would have loved to grow up here,” I said. “When I was a little kid, I used to have this fantasy where my parents would discover I had a long-lost uncle or something, who owned a bookstore, and they’d send me to live with him. In the bookstore.” I smiled at the memory. “I wrote a story about it when I was in fourth grade. It was called The Girl Who Lived in the Bookshelves.”

“Creepy,” Cal said, grinning.

“Oh, totally. And completely unintentional too. I just loved the idea of being a little kid and spending your day between bookshelves, falling asleep on stacks of paperbacks.” I shifted on the chair. “The beginning went something like, ‘Hey there readers. I’m Lucia, and guess what? I live in a bookstore! But that’s not all. Books are my best friends!’”

Cal snorted into his coffee, wrapping his arm around me and squeezing.

“But the title did sound like a horror story. And anyway, that was a tangent. Why didn’t your mom like it here?”

“My grandparents happened to have children who were the exact opposite of them. They were numbers kids, like I am. Or was. Or—” Cal paused, brow furrowed, “I guess I’m both, to be honest. But my mom ended up going to school for computer engineering and my uncle is a physicist. They’re very rational. They don’t go to poetry readings or stay up all night with a good book. They thought all of this—” he indicated the store behind him, “—was kind of pointless.”

“But your mom sent you here every summer. She must have thought it had some value.”

“True,” he said, thinking. “After my grandmother died, I think she saw how lonely my grandfather was. He and I were always very close.”

“You’re like him,” I teased.

He shook his head. “Except for the fact that we share a distinctive nose, we’re nothing alike.”

“Hmm,” I said, finishing my coffee. “I don’t know about that.” But I let it drop, since it was clear to me he was sensitive about this.

And so clear to me that he and his grandfather shared more than just the same nose.

“What are you reading?” I asked, nudging his book with my toe.

“I just finished a Flannery O’Connor anthology.”

I made a sound of affirmation. “The first time I read A Good Man is Hard to Find I had nightmares for a week.”

“I would have loved to peek inside her mind, just for a minute. Or watch her writing process. How did she get so dark?”

“She’s a genius,” I agreed. “Now what?”

Cal smiled. “More Kerouac. Back to the Beats for a bit. I picked up some Bukowski last night.”

“Talk about intense,” I said. “Kerouac make you want to fling away the remnants of your former life and embrace something wild and crazy?”

“I have to give the investors an answer tomorrow,” Cal said. “So no more adventures for me, sadly.”

My stomach clenched. “To sell this place,” I said. We hadn’t spoken about it since that first night in the poetry room. “For some reason, I keep thinking you’re not going to sell.”

“Nope,” he said, resolutely. “It’s what’s best, really. They were concerned about damage from the storm, but luckily there wasn’t any. I’ll be back in San Jose by the end of the month.”

“If you know you’re going to sell to them why haven’t you given them an official answer yet?” I asked, curious. I could feel his hesitation. Try as he might, Calvin couldn’t hide his feelings—they were written all over his face. “Can’t you just call them and say yes?”

Awareness washed over his body and he leaned against me. “Probably, yes,” he hedged. “I should, right?”

“It’s not my decision,” I said softly. “Maybe you just like extending the fantasy a bit longer?”

Cal pressed a quick kiss to the tips of my fingers. “I guess that’s what this feels like, running this bookstore in the middle of paradise. A fantasy. Not real life.”

“But it could be, Calvin,” I pressed. “You could make it your life.”

“I’m not Kerouac, Lu. I’m just a regular person.” Cal looked at me. “Hey, do you remember that night we had the party out here?”

“Of course.”

“You quoted On the Road to me. And I remember thinking, well,” he stopped, coughing a little.

“Surprised I wasn’t dumb?” I asked with a teasing grin. He reddened, and I reached forward to kiss his cheek. “I’m just giving you a hard time. You wouldn’t be the first.”

“I feel bad about it now, to be honest,” he confessed. “I made such a snap judgment about you. And it was totally wrong.”

“It couldn’t have been all wrong. I am sometimes…” my tongue tripped on the words, “I can be shallow. It’s part of the world I live in. But also, you’re the first person, except for Josie, that I really let myself talk about the things I love with. I usually hide it. People like it when I’m silent and beautiful.”

Cal tilted his head. “You’re not silent though. I feel like you’ve got this huge personality on set. You’re so funny. And you’re kind of weird sometimes. You’re, well, you’re very Lucia.”

I laughed. “Ah, my agent would call that ‘getting a reputation’. When I was twenty I’d just smile and nod. Now…” I shrugged. “I see more of the bullshit. Eleven years of modeling is a long time. Plus, it gets harder and harder just to sit around and smile prettily. Like you’re a piece of finely-crafted furniture.”

The sun was lifting higher, unyielding, and I had the oddest feeling that Calvin and I were the only ones left on Earth. He ran his fingers through my hair, pulling on a strand to the very end.

“Do you think you’ll feel that way in Paris?” He asked, which rocked me back to reality, like having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown in my face. It was so easy to forget, wrapped up in this sweet, sexy man.

“Oh…” I started. “Shit, I don’t know. Maybe.” I paused. “Probably.”.

“Opportunity of a lifetime,” he said, quoting me from the other night. “Even if you do feel that way, it’s just two years. Two years and then boom. Your face is everywhere.” He paused. “Well, more everywhere. I do feel like before you came up here, I saw you on magazine covers all the time.”

“Sure, but with modeling…there’s always someone younger, prettier and more exotic coming up from behind you, trying to take your spot. For a 26-year-old to get a makeup contract is a big deal actually.”

“I mean, you’re basically The Crypt Keeper,” Cal said dryly.

I rolled my eyes. “I know it’s ridiculous. But not in modeling. In modeling I’m a grandmother, someone the younger girls look up to.” I paused. “And I say ‘girls’ because they are literally seventeen years old.”

“And yet none of them can hold a candle to you,” he said.

“You’re sweet.”

“I’m being serious. I’ve watched you every day. The way you transform your face, move your body, the poses you hold…you just shine. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got this light and everything else seems dim beside you.”

I laid my palm against his cheek. “Thank you, Cal, that was…thank you,” was all I could say.

We spent about a minute staring into each other’s eyes, goofy as lovelorn teenagers.

“Did you write last night?” he finally asked.

“I did,” I said, butterflies in my stomach. “And it was all terrible. But also so, so wonderful. Just the sight of pen ink on the cream-white pages of my notebook was enough to keep me going.” I paused. “Big Sur is helping me discover there’s no better feeling than reclaiming something you thought you’d lost forever.”

A moment stretched between us. Nearby, a sudden burst of birdsong. Max shifted at our feet, paws moving in his dreams.

“Did you write something for me?” Cal finally asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “Yesterday was very inspiring,” I said, leaning into his hand in my hair. He scratched my scalp lightly and I purred. “Darkness. Our breathing, the condensation on the car window.” Cal’s gaze darkened, nostrils flaring. “The feeling I got when I’d race down the hallway to meet you.” I splayed my hand on my stomach. “Like getting to the top of the roller-coaster. I was so present in the moment, so present in my life. The anticipation,” I stopped, biting my lip. A few minutes around Cal and I automatically started to spill like I never did around any other people.

Cal gazed at me, his green eyes standing out against the green of the trees behind him. Leaned forward, thumb tilting my chin up. Kissed me slowly, his lips on mine a sense of two halves coming together. His tongue explored my mouth, fingers moving to grip my hair. I tried to move closer to him but he kept me in place, content to keep kissing me, his only goal sensation. Touch. Longing. After what felt like hours he finally pulled back, barely an inch, breath hovering. Our eyes met, something searing and honest passing between us.

“What are you doing to me, Lucia Bell?” Cal asked.

“Same thing you’re doing to me,” I whispered.

 In the distance, I heard Cal’s landline ring. His eyes closed, face pained.

“Do you have to get that?” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s the emergency phone again.”

We stayed an inch apart, breathing in each other.

“How come every time we kiss each other there’s an emergency?” I asked, running my tongue along the seam of his lips.

He groaned, but then the phone seemed to get louder, more persistent, and he pressed a kiss to my forehead, standing.

“Hold that thought,” he said, taking his coffee and Max with him.

I settled back against the chair, tilting my face up to catch the first rays of sun. A hummingbird flew past, hovering for a moment in front of me, wings a blur of motion, its head the sultry red of a pomegranate. I wanted to write a poem about this bird, seeking sweet nectar.

If the original calculations were correct, we had at least another five days here. I stretched my legs out, surprised that I was looking forward to five more days being off social media, five more days when my agent and Paris and fans couldn’t reach me.

Five more days with Calvin, exploring every inch of his leanly muscled body, memorizing the way pleasure moved through him, moved through me. Maybe we could go for a hike. Maybe he’d take me to the ocean, ravaging me on the sand. Maybe I’d stay up all night reading to him. Maybe—

“Lucia?” Cal said, stepping out. For a second, the sun’s rays sparkled behind him.

“Hey,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“That was Gabe. The road crews worked faster than they originally expected. By midnight tonight they expect both slides to be officially cleared.” He swallowed hard. “It means you’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.”

 

◊